MANCHESTER ranks as one of the biggest "sick note cities", according to latest government figures on benefit claims.

MANCHESTER ranks as one of the biggest "sick note cities", according to latest government figures on benefit claims.

The Department of Work and Pensions has revealed to MPs the dramatic gap that exists in the number of people claiming incapacity benefit from city to city.

The figures show around 1.4 per cent of people in Manchester claim the benefit, which ranks as the fourth highest claim rate in the country. the claim rate is only higher in Glasgow (2.29 per cent), Birmingham (2 per cent) and Liverpool (1.6 per cent).

Nationally, the government is trying to reduce the cost of incapacity benefit, currently around £13.8bn, by encouraging more people to go back to work.

Ministers believe that out of the 2.7m people claiming incapacity benefit, around 1.8m are able to work.

Measures to be introduced this year will impose stricter rules on those who claim they are unable to work because of ill health.

Claims

And thousands of people will be given compulsory training courses to help them find a job. Five of the 10 Greater Manchester authorities are listed in the list of 50 centres with the highest rate of claims.

Wigan ranks at number 10 (0.83 per cent of people claiming), Salford at 27 (0.62 per cent), Bolton 30th (0.58 per cent), Tameside 32nd (0.57 per cent) and Rochdale 36th (0.54 per cent).

Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions spokesman David Laws said the statistics highlighted the gap in the health of the nation between inner cities like Manchester and more affluent areas.

"The government has talked for too long about benefit reform," said Mr Laws. "Now is the time for a new approach to help the hundreds and thousands of people who are written off under the existing system back to work."

The Conservative spokesman Sir Malcolm Rifkind said that sick and disabled people deserved the right to work, but so many were left on incapacity benefit without any help.

Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett has vowed to weed out those people claiming what is known by some MPs as "bad back benefit" from the state.